Five times Spock touched Nyota's mind and the one time she touched his
by gad-eshu'a
Summary: Vulcans psionic abilities lend themselves to some fascinating interactions. For Spock, touching Nyota's mind has been particularly captivating to behold. Five vignettes account for the five times Spock initiated linking their minds and the one where Nyota linked with him.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: While I have (no lie) 100+ pages of Between two suns already written most of it is the ending and there are not enough S/U going on yet. They're not my characters so they take a little bit more time to flesh out and be recognizable. That being said I have some gifts that I need to post so I'm finishing those as I take time to get these next three chapters for BTS ready. This is a typical 5:1 prompt for AdelphaHighbrow on AO3 of mind touching and it had to be fluffy so I kept my ass in the T rated lane. Second half to come later.

They stare in awkward silence with the small carton of milk held between them, unsure of how to excuse the faux pas.

He had been busy holding his tray, arranging his lunch and thinking about his next class's lesson plan to notice that they were reaching for the same drink. So when his fingers glanced against hers they are both stunned by the exchange.

The impression of her mind is hazy, like one trying to view the horizon through the waves of heat radiating off the ground, sticking to him like a warm, wet cloth. Only the most immediate concepts were legible, her want of the milk, her mild fatigue from waking early after a long night and...peanut butter? The thought of sweet legume was so strong that he could almost taste the thick, cloying paste. He shifted his tongue along the roof of his mouth and rolled his lips at the phantom taste.

Her hand recoiled away from his and she cleared her throat with an intentional noise. " Commander."

It only one word but when the cadet looked at him Spock saw a wealth of meaning behind it. An apology, an acknowledgement and...her assurance that she was well if he was.

" Cadet." he said placing the milk on his tray while she grabs the one behind it. They walk in silence down the the cafeteria concession, sliding their trays along the shiny, metal rails until they reach the cashier at the end.

Studying her from the corner of his eye did he spy her biting her lip, for what reason he is unsure while worrying her thumb over the fingers that touched his own. His eyes watch the movement, curious to know if the Cadet was experiencing any lingering effects.

As he lifted his tray to depart Spock reached over and picked up one of the small plates of peanut butter cookies lining the confectionary section near the register. He placed it on her tray with a small glance in her direction before departing towards the tables.

He did not see her turn her face to hide her smile or her subsequent purchase.

Spock was just finishing the last spear of his spicy asparagus when saw the same small brown hand from earlier come back into view and drop a neatly wrapped blondie square with white chocolate chunks in front of him.

He glances up in surprise and blushed slightly at her smile. She is quite beautiful. He searched for her name and found it seconds later. " Cadet Uhura, I do not require any additional food."

" No, sir you don't but I think you deserve it, Commander. Enjoy your day, sir."

As he stares at her retreating figures he swallowed down the suspicion that she felt much more in the touch than he realized.

He didn't think that _they_ would have endured this long.

Endure is the wrong verb to describe their particular...situation. That made it seem unpleasant, something that was being long suffered or burdened with. Nyota and her company were far from invidious.

His singular regard of who Nyota was to him with the possibility to expand upon that definition was the best experiment he conducted to date, if he allowed himself to speculate.

It has been nothing more than three dates over some form of dining or drinking but all three instances have been beyond their expectations. The relationship that they forged therein was thriving much to his satisfaction as while as to his surprise. Though none may have thought it, Spock has learned from their time together that he and Nyota were quite complimentary.

It is from this newfound knowledge that he expresses his desire to progress deeper into their 'relationship', formulate a new hypothesis if they would.

So when he asked her, Nyota seemed genuinely delighted at the prospect. She leaned over towards him with her plush lips slightly parted, her lids heavy and a hand outstretched to rest on his thigh and he chided himself for his lack of clarity.

He saw she has misinterpreted his meaning and shied away from her face. She looked at him in confusion now as if he has been needless misleading in his words. Ironic perhaps.

" I'm sorry, what did you mean by making our relationship...more intimate?"

Spock watched Nyota's eyes studied his face for any indication of his words until they creased with a frown as the search turned up empty.

" I desire to meld with you."

She blinked at him and shifted on the couch with an expression he couldn't discern. He had rushed the words out of his mouth, uncertain of the repercussions or her reaction to such a vulnerable exchange.

His apprehension grew as the silence stretched between them.

 _I have asked to early_ he thinks as he straightened his back. Spock held his hands at his sides on the couch cushion well away from her own less she touch him as realize his angst. How very foolish and human of him to be _hopeful._

He had been rash to ask, no more controlled than some hormone struck teen alone with his bondmate for the first time.

The evening had been so amicable and he had ruined it. Their conversation had been easy, their fare quite palatable and the affinity between them steadily developing. _And then I overstepped the boundaries of propriety_ Spock thought chagrined. Best to excuse himself before he further damaged their tentative relationship.

" Nyota I-"

" - will it hurt?"

He was unprepared for her question but answered automatically. " Physically not at all. It will just my hands...on your face. Along here." he gestured above her face with his fingers. " There is however a high statistical chance of emotional transference. While some of the emotions you may witness or experience within the meld may be uncomfortable I can assure you that it will not harm you."

He watches her nervously lick her lips and dart her eyes to the coffee table. For the first time he can recall he feels flush in her presence. One heeled foot delicately bounces in the air as she uncrosses and refolds her legs over one another. " You want this?"

" Yes, very much." he replies quickly and stiffens at her laughter soon after.

She smiles at him warmly and slides closer. " I can tell. Okay, let's go deeper. What will you or I see?"

" I will link us into the meld but you will be our guide. It is whatever you want me to see."

" Ugh that's so vague. Do better."

He raises a hand and cups her cheek. The touch of it cool and soft, reminding Spock of tucking into a freshly made bed. The notion inspires comfort between them both as she feels his admiration of her person. " Think of something you have never shared with anyone."

He splays his fingers and runs them higher up along her face. Not even a second later her psi points pull at his digits with an almost mental magnetism. Spock lightly pushes where sensation is the strongest and hold her faces with the other hand.

They are staring at one another when the brown of her eyes looks as if it is engulfing the black of her pupil.

They are one a large shuttlecraft with Nyota as a young adolescent and Spock as a invisible observer. He feels her joy and excitement as she gaze out at the large ringed planet looming below her. She is taken with its green color and illogical wishes that earth had rings around it as well.

Her parents tell her as much about the rings but her uncle encourages the irrational desire. _Raheem_ her mind calls him and Spock knows this man to be special to her. They are visiting his new dwelling there when a malfunction causes an explosion in the ship. Her parents are instantly stunned while Spock is rocked by the panic that grips her.

Space and time fluctuate as she moves slowly and her surroundings move faster. Her uncle was out of the shuttle trying to fix when the malfunction when the eruption took place and is now hurling towards the planet. Spock looks on in horror as his Vulcan mind grimly calculates his chances for survival. Raheem contacts the ship and Nyota's hands move across the console to answer. Alarms are blaring and lights blind her every time they flash in warning but she listens and clings to his every word like an order.

 _Turn off the gravity. Pull your parents into the escape pod. Activate the detachment sequence. Enter the escape pod. I will be fine. Seal the first door and then the second port. Power on navigation and select autopilot. Press the red button at the top center that says emergency hail. It's okay I will be alright. Buckle your harness after you secure your parents and push the throttle forward. I love you and I am so proud of you, Nyota._

Spock sees a bright streak of fiery white arch across the atmosphere followed by Nyota's tear stricken face. Her lips are parted as she takes in a hiccuping breath. Her glassy eyes fastened onto his when she touches his face and feels her angst mirrored inside him. His face is emotionless but inside he is a storm.

Spock's eyes however are wide with recognition. He knows now what Nyota went through, why she would keep such an experience locked away inside her but he also saw something else. He draws her closer with hold he has on her face and she swallows as his emotions cross between him. When he kisses her Spock doesn't say the revelation he has aloud but he knows she feels it, knows that he believes her to be the most strikingly beautiful person he has ever known.

To inspiration such greatness in others he fashioned the latest Kobayashi Maru exercise with her in mind. It's not until much later that she even begins to see why and how much offense he has taken at Kirk's attempts to cheat the test. It was in her honor. It was to make others...feel the poignancy of a no win scenario.

They laid side by side panting up at the ceiling. Nyota sighs and Spock's eyes flutter open. His hand is still on her face coiling their minds together as they basked in the afterglow. He now has a fairly good understanding as to why Nyota had wished to perform such an activity. The experience was far from disagreeable.

She licked her lips and started to speak. " That was-"

" -exceptional?" he offered, turning his head on the pillow to look at her.

" Yes…" she smirked with a pleased hum. He felt her mirth from his assessment tickle at his side. He wanted to kiss her so he did, folding two of the fingers he had on her face against his palm while running the other two digits down along her cheek.

She shivered at the motion as the sensation makes her her breath hitch and pupils dilate further. At her reaction Spock felt the urge to do it again.

" That thing where you-"

Her mind finishes the thought with the action in mind before her words and he answers Nyota aloud. " -yes. It was-"

"- awesome..." she sighed against his wrist. Her hair was loose and wild around her face and the hunger look she gives him make Spock picture a tigress. Both females are strong, willful and beautiful and he finds the comparison not out of line.

She caught the thought before he was able to recall it and giggled with a mock growl. He sniffed at her very human sense of humor but she pulled at his amusement nonetheless. He cannot help but feel kindred to her. Perhaps this is what people define as being soul mated?

" Soul mates and yes I feel the same way." she murmurs through her smiling mouth as she tosses the hair of his bang. " I'm so glad that 'we' are. I don't know if that makes sense."

Spock closed his eyes and sees the concepts she has behind her words. There's the recollection of their first date, her anxious giddiness as he asks her to attend him while on their second, his begrudging acceptance to share a dessert even though it's unsanitary and his jealousy possessive of ice cream prevents him from relaxing enough to enjoy it, their time volunteering at the golden gate bridge animal shelter where they learn that he is allergic to dogs but as a consolation of sorts has an immense love of cats.

Memory after memory flipped before him like pages from a pre-war book and he greedily devoured them and their partnered emotions like a leech. They have no true taste but there is a sticky sweetness to them like honey in his mind.

They sigh in unison as he withdraws himself carefully away. " Yes. Soulmates. And perhaps one day bondmates."

He feels Nyota's shocked surprise at his words though she doesn't seem upset by the news. " Why does this information come as a surprise? Vulcans do not date. I would not have commenced courting you if I did not see bonding with you as a probable outcome."

" No, I mean, I guess I'm just surprised...flattered really that you would settle for me."

" I would not consider it 'settling', Nyota. I want you."

At the accompanying feeling of his words she inhales sharply and Spock is pleased that she has felt his conviction. She wipes at her faces awkwardly, trying hard not to smudge her mascara and kohl as she dabs under her eyes with a single crooked finger. " I want you too."

A part of his mind latches tightly to the proclamation and he finds himself extremely contented. Content with the moment, content with her and for the first time in a long time content with himself.

Nyota rolls her body towards him and snuggles up beside him. " So I have a question. Will us being physically-"

" -yes?"

" Will it always be so...?"

" I believe the word you used was awesome."

She chuckles but nods her head. Her fingers are tangling themselves in the hair trailing down his torso and he mirrors the shiver that she did when he performed the _ozh'esta_ across her face. " Yeah so...would it be?"

Spock hums in consideration as he pulls her closer. " There is insufficient data to draw a conclusion. I am amenable however to experimentation. Care to form a hypothesis to which we can build a control?"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Still working on between 2 suns. Bear with me but I'm now done with this sappy mess LOL

" Ok. Ready."

Spock pulls against her mind and they groan in unison. They are in his office spending what Nyota wanted to be quality time during their lunch break and what Spock wished to be a productive expenditure of their time during his.

After a somewhat emotional exchange of points and rebuttals, the pair make a compromise by agreeing to try something new. A game of sorts, a test in will power against the other as they funnel in random memories to provoke the other into an emotional response.

Spock's eyes are closed as his confidence is buoyed his feelings of superiority. He has been performing this task his whole life, it's the foundation of his maintaining a logical lifestyle. In many words he feels...overly confident.

Nyota being human, is first to attack, hitting Spock with a vision of her first day as his TA. His body mimics her reaction, knotting his stomach and halting the production of his salvia. His head swims and bobs in a daze as he is swept up in her unnaturally strong response of longing towards him. It was disorienting but he easily quashes the feelings down. Nyota seems either crossed or dismayed by his ease in doing so.

He however feels the seed of smugness take root as he lobs the memory of I-chaya's snout getting stuck in a discard can of pre fruit. As the sehlat rolled around in distress Spock is disheartened to find that Nyota has a range of emotional responses, none of which come over her face and stature.

She seems unhappy about his family's pet being stuck and wishes it feel of the offending can. She does think he's cute but not as much as other animals. Perhaps if he were a cub she thinks mildly, as if she's bored. Spock feels himself grow irritated at her lack of reaction, it was not suppose to be this difficult. She is human, expressing her emotions come naturally.

He's not left with much time to mull over his disappointment before she's exchanging another memory, this time of her accidently eating Orion spice.

It was an innocent mistake, she had wanted to impress her family by ordering their dinner in trader's tongue and mistranslated the menu's mention of the appetizers being heavily spiced. The waiter had tried to warn her off in Kolari but she would have none of it and insisted that the have the stuffed spiced olives.

Her first initial bite gave her a hint that she had let her hubris lead her into folly. The effects of her previous intoxication pull at Spock like a tidal pool draining out to sea. Before him Nyota turns pink and chirps like a bird. He blinks to clear his vision but his slight is slow to follow, decomposing before him in a number of mathematical fractals in a web of never ending prismatic color around her frame.

Spock blinks again and notes that the time with which he used to make the movement is markedly longer though he cannot determine by how much. It is a disconcerting revelation and he feels his long standing decision to not consume such rubbish validated within him. Pink Nyota tweets her agreement on the matter as she watches him with overly large eyes. Not that he would have ever entertained the notion but Nyota is just as lovely in magenta as she is in brown. He thinks he would love her no matter what-

" OH~!"

Spock looks back at her to find that Nyota looks stricken. He has won the challenge but he is now concerned about her response. Was the experience that distressing for her that recalling-

" _You_ love _me_?"

Spock goes still as he reviews his numb minded musing. Yes _there_ , the thought that he would be smitten with the Kenyan no matter her shape or hue. Nyota Uhura was remarkable to him. " I do." he said as it was a revelation for himself.

Somehow in the mundane day to day, something extraordinary happened without either of them knowing. Spock knew he came to expect as well as welcome her presence two dates after their first meld but he hardly meditated over it. If he were honest he thought about her all the time even when she was not the focus of his attention. She was _wanted_ by him. All of her.

Nyota, who he rarely ever sees become unreasonably emotive, cries silently at the review of his note of her. The fingers on her face move to cradle her cheek and his dexterous thumb gently rubs away the fat tear in its halting descent down towards her chin.

" Is it really that hard to believe that I would hold you so highly?"

She rolls her lips into her mouth to wet them along her tongue and sniffs at the moisture threatening to leave her nostrils. " I just didn't think that it was possible, you know? A decorative Vulcan Commander coming to love a some human cadet."

" You are not just any human or Cadet. You are the top of your class, extremely accomplished in console repair and reconstruction, one of two lead soloist for the academy's choral and the fleet's most prized and sought out polyglot even as a cadet."

Sometime during his assessment he had pulled her over to straddle his lap and rest his forehead against hers. " And as brilliant as you are as a cadet your humanity outshines it."

She nuzzles his face and catches a quick kiss on his lips. " How do you figure this?"

Spock braces her closer and shifts to lay down on the couch with her draped across him. With a lazy brush of his fingers through her hair, he blinks at her in complete relaxation and smiles with his eyes. " Because you made a very logical Vulcan let go of reason and every excuses he could find so he could hold fast to you. When I considered our exclusivity at length Nyota there was nothing illogical about it...you were always what I wanted,...who I wanted. How could that be foolish?"

She smiles at him with her wide mouth closed, very much pleased by the accompanied affection of his words. He feels them reflected back and hums. It's a feeling not unlike the high but instead of disorienting it makes Spock feel invigorated and his heart flutters below his ribs.

Her emotions change from doting to what he believes to him playful as she lowers her lids and taunts him. " You cheated with the I love you. How was I not going to respond?"

" You are not willing to concede defeat?" he prods back.

" Oh I admit defeat, on the basis that you hit me with that emotional sucker punch. If you hadn't I was going to win on my next turn."

" How can you be so sure, Nyota?"

" Oh ho ho!" she laughs and leans in for a kiss. He huffs at her but she knows he is moved by her affection. " I'm sure because I had this…"

Spock blushes, unsure of where to put his eyes as memory of the second time together floods his mind.

He had been particularly ardant about employing the use of his mouth that evening, resulting in an unreasonable of virile pride as Nyota was left satisfyingly limp across his couch. The sensation of her contentment ghosts between them as the meld shows him now what she felt during and after.

When she giggles at him, Spock realises he has pulled her into his lap and was making a very inappropriate, very Vulcan sound of his contentment. Unbecoming as it was, at the moment he could not bring himself to care. " Yes with that I believe you would have won however I recall the memory quite differently."

She chuckles inside her mouth and makes a noise denoting her surprise. " Oh, is that so?"

He pulls her closer and gives a serious look while nodding his head. " Indeed. I will supplement the deficit in detail with a reenactment sometime later this evening."

She laughs now in earnest and cups his face as he continues to cup one side of hers. " Just one of the many benefits in loving you."

He nods modestly caresses the sharp edge of her cheekbone with his thumb. " _Pen-nil-bek veh t'wehk sanosh nash veh-bosh ashaya du._ (Just one of many pleasure I possess in loving you.)"

So much has happened in all too of a little time. Sitting on the floor as numb as he is, Spock knows it to be all too true.

It would be one thing to say What is, is but all the tragedies that have come to pass seem to happen because of him. More and more Spock feels himself folding inward as depression plagues his waking moments.

The loss of his mother, _Ah'rak_ , Pike and countless others weigh on him as much as his grief and guilt of surviving. His commission as an officer keeps him going but those closest to him are under no delusions that he is merely going through the motions. He certainly does not fool _her_.

Her small brown hand is ever reaching towards him in his darkness, ever welcoming his morbid refrain, calling him to grieve beside her. _It's okay, feel it_ she says, _I'm here for you_ but to accept her offer feels like an affront towards his father's people, who shun such activities. Openly express his turmoil to grieve those who wouldn't?

Spock cannot bring himself to do so.

This should be something he should be able to get over. He is Vulcan, a creature reliant on logic and what good will it do him to then rely on his emotions? _That would make things worse_ he thinks and with that thought he denies the need to do so.

Nyota remains worried however, just as much as he imagines his mother would be. The longer he lingers in his melancholy the more Nyota's fear starts to take the shape of anger and resentment. He is broken, they are broken but how are they to fix it if he refuses to, if he is unable to?

If he is hopeless in his will to persevere in the face of adversity then she is helpless in her attempts to infuse him with the necessary verve. Nyota is confronted with the reality of it as the countdown to the freeze detonator ticked steadily downward with Spock was trapped inside the raging Volcano beside it. She listened in powerless terror as static crackled between their line of communication.

 _V'tosh_ or not they both know he wouldn't be able to withstand the heat of the virulent lava flows building pressure enough to wipe out half the planetside and all intelligent life upon it. He is all too calm as he debates the cons of venturing out to retrieve him, reciting the well known prime directive to them as if they were still cadets.

That he does not say goodbye to her, does nothing to express that what they have between them means something to him before he passes on wounds her gravely.

Spock is, of course, ignorant of the anguish he inflicts her with. He is too far gone to even help himself.

She does not look at him when he returns and her seeming indifference hurts more than his reckoning onto death just a few moments earlier.

Their encounter with the Klingons and Khan did nothing to assuage the insecurity. Over and over he was remained of his lacking, once as he watched Nyota's body suspended in the air by a single hand around her throat and then again when they tumbled out of the sky before the Captain bartered his life for everyone else's.

It was last strike against his control. His emotions were insurmountable, raging within him like a electric storm. The sheer force of it threatened to tear him apart but Khan was an acceptable substitute to rip instead. It was made abundantly clear he had little to no control over his circumstances but avenging his friends by way of violence was wholly in his hands.

He spirited like a madman, leaping and weaving after the abhorrent criminal to do the unthinkable. He could not make peace with these events. _Kaiidith_ for him was now only a saying because he would not be well with what was. In the time that he had caught the man who took the lives of his Captain and Admiral, Spock forsook his logic and sought to murder him.

Never had Spock been so angry. The summation of all his years of repressed grief and ire came bursting forth in a torrent of fury. After the first strike he could not help himself and met the villian blow for blow.

The pain of his skull being slowly crushed nearly resembled the state of his heart as he growls between Khan's hands. If he should perish he thinks, it would be good to do so in the effort to rid the world of this abomination. His vision started to spot and Spock felt his awareness dim before the man's hands faltered.

Spock spied Nyota behind the fiend with a phaser in hand, looking every bit the proud, powerful woman he knew her to be. And he also knew her to be in danger.

As Spock fell to his hands and knees to catch his breath Khan stalked towards her with air of nothing to lose. She shot the mutant male over and over but he did not halt his approach.

Determination and fear war for dominance in her eyes as she finally realized the peril she was in. For the briefest moment their eyes meet and in the small gesture she communicates so much.

Her love of him, her apology in failing to subdue Khan and a hope that Spock will live prosperously without her.

His mind rallied against the sentiments and had him rising to his feet. In that moment Spock felt more spirited than he has in the past year and 3 months. Looking over at the terrifying before him, Spock's mind assaulted him.

 _You believe yourself to have nothing but you could still lose her_ it screamed. _She has risked her life to save you and you would let her perish? Could you so easily part with her? Does she mean nothing to you?!_

His mind quickly calculated her odds as another mean to provoke him into action. They are tens of feet above the air, 60 stories in his rough estimation. Khan's strength was comparative to his own and Nyota's phaser had no critical effect on him.

Again his mind pleaded with him as he watched Khan loom over her. _Do you not know her to be your everything?_

His body moved of its own accord, putting his emotion back into action. It was the plaintive sound of her yelling voice that finally brought him back to himself.

Khan was bloodied beneath him. The cut along Spock's nose burned and his hands smart from beating against the mutant's face. He saw his face, fierce and feral reflected in Nyota's dilated eyes. She spoke but he could not catch all of it just snippets. It was enough for the logical lobe of his mind comprehend her request to spare the man below him.

So be it, if she wants it she will have it. And with that, Spock had knocked her would be killer unconscious.

After returning on board and subsequently to Starfleet headquarters in what was left in the aftermath of the crash, Spock retreats to his quarters. No one questions him, too lost in their own fog to think pass themselves. He does not notice either way.

Commanding, debriefing and being of use to the many has left him spent. It was pleasant in a perverse way to be too tired to think about how many lives had been lost, how Kirk spent his last moments trying to instill the meaning of human friendship and the still aching void where his mother and homeworld use to fill his mind.

Spock is empty, tired and nearly beyond reason. He remembers the feeling of derangement however and fears regressing back to that psychotic state. That nauseating rage that fed him as he pummeling Khan into the garbage shuttle's hull. At the time it was satisfying but upon reflection it was disgusting. He had been disgusting.

He glances over his bruised and swollen hands in contemplation. Who was he anymore? When had he become something less than himself? He continues along his macabre introspection when the door chimes break through his concentration.

 _reet reet_

Spock hesitates answering, comfortable now in his sequestration but he is uncertain as to the safety of his person. He feels fragile.

 _reet reet_

Spock rises from the floor and opens the door to find Nyota weighed down with several bags of what appeared to be provisions. She walks around him and walks to his kitchen, stepping out of her shoes as she goes.

" We're on leave for the next 48 hours."

Spock tilts his head with a furrowed brow, unsure of which question he should ask first. He finds it too strenuous to sort them so he settles for silence instead. Once she's stowed away everything to her liking Nyota pulls off her clothing until only her shirt remains.

She comes over and undresses him with a swift, steady hands, not meeting his gaze as she slips off his torn blue tunic or bloodied slacks. Spock moves his arms and legs to help her in doing so but makes no further actions spur her in one direction or another.

Once he's striped bare to his boxers Nyota guides him by the hand to the bedroom. She shuffles to the headboard and pulls him into her arms. Spock settles against her body easily and sighs as his cheek presses against the space between her breast.

She smiles down at him mildly, brushing away his bang so she can kiss his forehead. His eyes close at the crush of her lips and he wraps his arms around her. Nyota retrieves one of his arms however and brings his hand to her face.

She waits patiently to see if he is amenable and in even his current condition, he cannot help the alluring prospect for such Vulcan sense of intimacy. They move until he can easily rest his arm along her body and still touch her face. As soon as the familiar warmth of her mind radiates against the pads of his fingers Spock draws them together in a tight psionic embrace.

They release a breath in unison and hug themselves closer. In her mind he sees her overwhelming desire to be with him, to comfort and soothe him. She think the undefined offer to meld will give him the security he needs to express himself in whatever form it takes. Physically, Nyota does nothing more, save for holding him with one arm and smoothing her fingers through his hair with the other.

Casting off everything that would thwart his rest, Spock sinks deeper within the meld and feels the heaviness of his fatigue take him under.

His sleep is deep and dreamless as it typically is but Nyota's presence in his mind, warm and soft against his own. Peace that evaded him since he lost his home starts to take root once again. When he wakes her eyes are close but her sleepy mind regards him.

/ I am and always will be here for you, Spock./

He curls closer to her and nuzzles his face against her. Nyota Uhura never fails to give him pause.

Bells ululate and shriek into the air as Spock awaits her arrival. He is not bothered that she is late, he knows she would not tarry, not on today. He straightens his robes with a roll of his shoulders and tugs his sleeve from inside the bell with his fingers. It's an unnecessary gesture however. It's his eighteenth time doing so.

Nervous energy builds inside him from the surrounding crowd of family, friends and well-wishers. Captain Kirk along with his brother Sybok are at his side as he waits at the foot of his great grandmother's paladin.

The scene outside his father's finely constructed estate is resplendent in the valley below one of the many mountain ranges of new Vulcan. The Watcher is no longer there to bear witness to their union just as his mother is absent from the ceremony but they are on his mind as he reviews the years leading up to this point. For him the past nine years have passed quickly but with no shortage of trials and tribulations. Through it all she has been there, a warm, steady beckon of light in the wake of his plentiful sorrows.

There had been a time where he had almost lost her to a sense of obligation to his people. Their future felt just as perilous as his own as each of them struggled with the emotional aftermath of all that they had lost.

The surmounting pressure of where his allegiance should lie and where his presence would be the most beneficial weighed on him to the point where they parted for a time until yet another tragedy had them colliding back together once again.

Even if Krall had not happened upon them, Spock was sure he would have come back to her. Every moment spent knowing that he was without the female that he had called his own for nearly a six years, 10 months and 27 days had him in physical pain.

What seemed like the right and logical decision to make had the Vulcan and human half of Spock reeling in a horrible sense of disconnection. She was not disposable and the action of ' breaking up' had Spock feeling more alone than he could ever recall. How could one live away from something as irreplaceable as their-

The bells crescendo into a deafening roar and Spock sees the bridal party approaching from the direction of the house. Spock and his attendants take a collective breath as they spy Nyota in the middle of the guards and handmaids.

She is dressed just as resplendently as he, in a pale, terran blue robe to his jet black and bronze. The sky colored gown floats behind her in waves further enhancing her grace and beauty. Her hair sits atop her head in a soft crown of curls, banded with silver cords and anointed with a scent that new and alluring. Even from where he stands he can smell the perfume.

The multisensory display has him longing to go to her right then as he catches a whiff of rose oil warming along her neck. The thin, pale slips of latium he gave her for her birthday years before are in her ears, glinting in the light of the three suns above. Another shiny piece of jewelry catches his eye along with his breath.

His mother's necklace is at her breast visible in the low neckline of her robe. The vision of it makes him ache with from the memory of him almost losing her and his life. Even when he was struck with a nearly mortal wound he could not leave her to an unknown, potentially hazardous fate. It was at that time that Spock realized he would not let anything keep her from him, not even himself.

The necklace has taken on a new sentimental value in his eye and he welcomes the change in a sober reframe.

Nyota breaks away from her attendants and joins him to stand before T'Pau. She gazes at him and smiles in spite of herself. He did not need to touch her to know how happy she was and to be the one that makes her so ecstatic is humbling for him.

His pid-kom is speaking but he does not listen. He can not bring his attention away from his beaming bride. Nyota says his name and he feels his stomach dip near his heart fluttering at his side.

He is speechless and for a moment breathless from the sight of her. He wants to describe her, perfectly capture the beauty that she is before him in words but Spock finds them all irritatingly lukewarm to what he sees. If she only knew how much she captivated him. He knew his face to be still but just underneath the surface he was in the throes of engulfment.

T'Pau bids them to kneel before her and they nervously obey her. Her hand goes their brow and he feels the quiet, cool touch of her mind envelope his mind like someone palming a stone in their hand. For a moment he is paralyzed by the motion but then…

Euphoria swells inside him and he blinks over towards his bride,...now his wife as his clan matron oversees Nyota nesting herself soundly within him. He watches her give another small smile of pleasure as she embraces him as easily as a Vulcan would inside his mind. He can do nothing but behold her, taking her in with his eyes.

" Telik.( Bonded/ One)" T'Pau announces to the crowd and the humans among them cheer with shouts and claps.

Spock does not listen. She is only speaking of a truth his heart knew well before his mind. They were and always will be one.


End file.
